Live From New York

John Belushi! Dan Akroyd! Steve Martin! Chris Farley! The Church Lady . . . Pat . . . Rosanne Rosannadanna . . . The Killer Bees. And dozens of other celebrities, sketches, and cast . . . do not appear on this program except in disembodied form as a platoon of experienced readers slog through this tell-all history of SNL. That's the main weakness of this set. Though we learn in detail the peccadilloes of the long history of the show, no original cast members and not one minute of show outtakes grace the hours and hours of talk. This would be a fantastic journey if only the publisher had shelled out the licensing fees and reimbursed the stars. You know when a potentially great listen gets so boring that your brain gets numb? Yeah, I hate it when that happens! D.J.B. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine